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Cost of Family Health Insurance Now Nearly $20,000 a Year

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By Michael Rainey

October 3, 2018

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Annual premiums for employer-provided health insurance hit an average of $19,616 for a family this year, a rise of 5 percent over 2017, according to a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Employees paid an average of $5,547 for their coverage, with employers covering the rest.

The average premium for family coverage has risen 55 percent since 2008 — about twice as fast as wages, which are up 26 percent, and three times as fast as inflation, up 17 percent over a decade.

Faced with relentlessly rising health care costs, many companies have required employees to pay for more of their care before insurance kicks in, and the Kaiser survey found that deductibles are rising even faster than premiums. Among workers who have a deductible — about 85 percent of insured workers — the average deductible amount has risen to $1,573, a 212 percent increase since 2008. Deductibles have risen eight times faster than wages over the last 10 years, the survey said (see the chart below).

Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman said that he expects health care costs to be an important political issue for the foreseeable future. “As long as out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, drugs, surprise bills and more continue to outpace wage growth, people will be frustrated by their medical bills and see health costs as huge pocketbook and political issues,” Altman said.